The relationship between science and Christianity

¶ … Science and Christianity

Introduction common factor linking science and Christians in the debate about the existence of God, a hereafter - which is the Promise of God - and the history of Christians contained in the Bible is evidence. Both sides ask: is there evidence that science is wrong about evolution, creation, and that the Bible is right. Science, the professionals agree, and the Christians point out, is built upon models of "what if," in many cases. Most of the what if models were built around those questions that, if solved, and when solved, do more to link science and faith than to divide them in a decided way. For all the posturing about the accuracy of math and numbers being the only reliable evidence about anything in the universe, the revealing discoveries about ourselves as humans from a science approach, has often been proved wrong. The bold statement of scientists early in the argument, wherein they perhaps smiled mischievously and said, "Prove it," is no longer said with the smile or the conviction with which the two words were once uttered across the debate table to the Christians. For many of the events described in the Bible, which are significant events in the lives of Christians, science has proven did occur, or demonstrated how those events, including the parting of the Red Sea, could have occurred. Recent hypothesis and archeological ruins uncovered in recent decades, link science and faith in an almost inextricable way.

This paper is going to examine the connection between science and Christianity. Regardless of the position one wishes to take, be it science or faith, the examination of the hypotheses and evidence is intriguing and interesting.

Science and Christian Theories

Four thousands years ago, in the land of Canan, monotheism emerged as the Jewish tradition. Judaism was the first monotheistic religion. Since that time, science and faith have collided in their respective efforts to make sense of the beginning of the world, humanity, evolution, and things life on the planet. The Theory Intelligent Design, simplified, holds that the creation of the earth, its ability to sustain animal and human life, functions like an impeccably designed machine, an engine. In this way, it cannot have been the product of chaos, or, as science holds, the Big Bang Theory. When we think about this theory in terms of what science cannot explain about the world in which we live, then it becomes tempting, if not easy, to agree with intelligent design. William Dembski wrote that contemporary science no longer must explain the past in terms of the enlightenment; rather, science must reconcile religion in terms of a failed enlightenment (Dembski, William, 1960, 12-14). As the comparison is made to the science argument, the Big Bang Theory will for some be less tempting and less easy to agree with.

The Big Bang Theory is based on decades of studying the universe. It is a study that must be approached with caution. The tremendous volumes of data that have been collected over the past two decades alone will take decades more to fully analyze it. Philip M. Dauber and Richard a. Muller (1996) says that the violence of the Big Bang that brought about the creation of the universe and our planet was intensely vicious, far exceeding any violence man has ever committed against man (p. 2). We lack the vocabulary to define and describe it, so we settle for the simplest description, which at the same time helps to create the sense of the event, and it is the Big Bang Theory (p. 2). From the first Big Bang, the universe was created (p. 3). Out of the chaos of that most violent event, the planets formed, and then, two subsequent and violent events on a lesser scale than the first, and the planet Earth was chemically balanced with the elements to evolve and sustain human life.

William Dembski (1960) says that intelligent design is the bridge between science and religion (p. 14). As the body of archeological evidence is uncovered in the search for the past and the beginning of mankind, so, too, is uncovered the evidence that has lessened the gap between religion and science. There is a noticeable change in the attitude of science and religion. Both sides of the argument are less adamant in refuting the other today, and with good reason, too. Science continues to be the investigator that disproves itself, and religion waits patiently to take the glory away from the science each time a new archeological or biological study proves a religious myth no longer to be a myth.

The Religion of DNA

One of the most prominent statements of Biblical creation is, Genesis 1:27, "And God created man to his own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Recent work on decoding the human genome led to a religiously significant discovery that has since become known as the theory of the "mitochondrial Eve (Witham, Larry a., 2002, 89)."

Mitochondria is a genetic tracer that in 1987, using research that was not in a preliminary stage, experts on both side of the evolution argument ran with that the ancestor of mankind was traceable to a 2000-year-old woman in Africa (Witham, 89). While main stream scientists were reticent about engaging in discussions which might suggest that scientific evidence existed that would call into question evolution, the concept nonetheless came up in science circles again.

This is the specialized world of those who track the genetic timetable backward from the present. It presumes a steady rate of genetic mixing and then calculates mathematically from the modern diversity of human DNA back to its simpler forms in the past. The theory of the mitochondrial Eve was proposed again in 1991 by biochemist Allan Wilson, who "turned back the clock" by using a specialized computer program to study multiracial DNA samples of mitochondria (specialized cell structures that have their own DNA), nearly always inherited from mothers (Witham, 89)."

While some religious leaders simplified the science, saying that it was evidence of creation because it takes mankind back to Eve; the science is not that simple. A Spanish American immigrant who had pioneered work in DNA at the same time that Allan Wilson was discussing his "turned back clock," Francisco Ayala's research actually took the mitochondrial connection back further even than the Biblical Eve (Witham, 89).

That [immune] molecule existed sixty million years ago," he says, "about when the dinosaurs became extinct, before the origination of modern monkeys, let alone humans." By 2001, in fact, Ayala was publishing studies that questioned "whether there is a molecular clock at all," since he found proteins that "evolve erratically," some fast and some slow, despite the neutrality theory that molecules evolve at an even pace -- and thus can pinpoint past branching of organisms (Witham, 89)."

Ayala moves the discussion of the "mitochondrial Eve" back into the realm of science. The challenge from Christianity, however, can counter with a plausible explanation of how the mitochondrial Eve can be older than the Old Testament Eve, and still be the "Christian Eve." James Hope Moulton (1917), in his book, the Treasure of the Magi: A Study of Modern Zoroastrianism, takes the discussion on Christianity back to Persia, and the pre-written word time of the monotheistic Zoroastrians, which some religious historians suggest is the precursor to Christianity.

NINETEEN hundred years ago... Far away in Media, it may be, as they watched the skies for tokens of the future which they believed to be written therein, they had seen a star their practised eyes discerned to be new. It was the Angel of some Great One newly born. In visions of the night it was expounded to them that they should seek a King in Jerusalem and offer treasure in worship. Directed thence by the interpreters of prophecy, they set forth on the south road when the night fell; and the Star rose as they started, and moved to its low culmination, so that as they drew near to the hill on which was the City of David they saw it hang like a golden lamp over the place where their Saoshyant, the 'Future Saviour', lay (Moulton, 2)."

The Magi were Zoroastrians, out of Persia, and their monotheistic faith pre-dates Christianity. As we can see from Moulton's description above, the Magi believed that the birth of their Savior was foretold to them, and they traveled to offer gifts at the feet of the one that they recognized as their King; that was the Christ child. Here, for science, is a connection to Christianity that takes the idea of a mitochondrial Eve back before Judaism, since Zoroastrianism pre-dates even the Jewish Tradition, although it does not have a written book as do the three "book" religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

THE traditional date the Zoroastrians assign to their Prophet is '258 years before Alexander', and for the Persian or Iranian the name ' Alexander' can only have meant the sack of Persepolis, the extinction of the Achaemenian Empire, and the death of the last of the kings of kings, Darius III. This occurred in 330 BC, and Zoroaster's date would then be 588 BC, and this date we may take to refer to the initial success of his prophetic mission which consisted in the conversion of King Visht-spa when Zoroaster was forty years old. Since he is traditionally said to have lived seventy-seven years, we will not be far wrong in dating him at 628-551 BC. It seems also to be generally agreed that the Prophet's sphere of operation in which his message was proclaimed was ancient Chorasmia -- an area comprising, perhaps, what is now Persian Khorasan, Western Afghanistan, and the Turkmen Republic of the U.S.S.R. (Zaehner, R.C., 1961, 33)."

Ayala's science takes the mitochondrial Eve back even before what we know about Zoroastrianism, but we really have no accurate date of the monotheistic tradition as it arises out of Zoroastrianism, because there are no written artifacts that support its origins as going back further than 628-551 BC. This means, if we are going on a purely evidence basis as it relates to mitochondria, that science must be credited with taking the mitochondrial Eve to a historical marker that could suggest an evolutionary connection as opposed to a creation connection. Until there is more "science" to explain the mitochondrial Eve, it remains a mystery to be explained by either side of the argument; but it also remains a connection, or a bridge, between science and Christianity.

Cosmic Evidence of Intelligent Design

Neil Shanks (2004) writes that the standby arguments for and against intelligent design are absurd when made along the lines of statements like:

There aren't any intermediate fossils" and ignorant absurdities like "Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics (Shanks, vii)."

Shanks examined the facts for and against the arguments of intelligent design in the cosmos. Shanks discounts any kind of biological evidence connecting the intelligent design to the genetic arguments that some people claim support the theory (Shanks, 191). Shanks cites Dembski in what Shanks describes as a poor argument in favor of intelligent design, saying that Dembski and others have chosen not to take the evidential high road (Shanks, 225).

The problem with Shanks is that he is fanatical in his defense of science, and researchers Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross (2004) say that fanaticism, religious, political, or cultural is the nemesis to research and discovery new truths. Forrest and Gross, unlike Shanks, remain opening minded, do not discount that which could be the reality that science might itself one day be the proof that supports creation and intelligent design.

If we look at where life is in the universe, the only place that we are sure of is the planet Earth. If there is life elsewhere, it is a distance so far from earth that the life form's communication processes and modes are beyond man's understanding and reach. Reaching for intelligent design to explore and explain it, the hypothesis is that if life on earth came out of the chaos of the Big Bang, then where is the rest of the life or other earth-like planets? Should not earth-like planets and other life - even if it is life that is not familiar to humans - be elsewhere in the relatively close universe? Intelligent designs answers the question of why we appear to be alone in the universe.

Intelligent design suggests that those whom God created in His image are one of a kind.

The fact that Earth remains the only planet known to mankind where there is life, supports the theory of intelligent design. If the Big Bang theory explained the universe, explained the creation of the world in which we live, it would, then, too, ostensibly explain why there is not life elsewhere in the universe, or even our own galaxy. To suggest that the planet Earth is one of a kind of formation out of the chaos of the most violent explosion that can be imagined is absurd. If the Big Bang was an action through which a planet such as Earth came to be, even if Earth was at first an environmentally hostile planet; then to suggest that the event did not manifest itself in more than one Earth-like planet that could eventually sustain life, is not good science. For this reason, the existence of the cosmos without life as we know it or understand existing elsewhere is the cosmos argument in favor of intelligent design. Like the science of evolution, until such a time as it is disproven, it remains for Christians the evidence in support of intelligent design.

Archeology and Christianity

J.A. Thompson (1982) says that archeology has furthered the knowledge and understanding of the Bible, more than any other science (Thompson, 3). Thompson says, too, that archeology "[it] provides the general background of the history of the Bible (Thompson, 4)." Archeology has helped to put into context the life and languages that are found in the Bible (Thompson, 4). Archeology does not always work in the way in which religious leaders would like it to. In recent decades, archeology has helped to bring about an awareness of the Gnostic Gospels, those writings that were, for whatever reason excluded from the Bible. Much of what was excluded was mystical, but some of the Gnostic writings are works that portray women in an equal right and light as that in which men are portrayed in. In the instance of the Gnostic Gospels, archeology was the facilitator of debate and controversy.

Archeology has been the source of refuting certain Bible stories too. The Bible talks about Babylon this way:

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation (Isa. 13:19, 20). Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts; the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire (Jer. 51:37, 53, 58) (Thompson, 193)."

The archeological evidence, combined with historical evidence, shows that Babylon was "taken" by Persia in 539 B.C., to become a "second capital (Thompson, 193)." It was still occupied as a city when Alexander the Great overtook Persia, and it was a town of dwindling significance and population by the time the Romans had a presence there (Thompson, 193). That it eventually became deserted and fell to ruin does not fulfill the stories of the Bible cited above. In this case, archeology is again a link between Christianity and science, but it is a link that serves to establish that the Bible is a collection of beautiful stories handed down from generation to generation beginning as an oral tradition, and subsequently being put into a written form for preservation. As we look at the above scripture, we find that there is a message for the community for which the story was written. It served as a warning not to go the way of Sodom and Gomorrah, lest Babylon fall too. The Bible carries a lot of morals learned for its audiences.

There are occasions, too, in the study of archeology and the Bible when archeology supports the Bible tradition. It is that way in the case of Ezekiel.

It was during the days of exile that the prophet Ezekiel sought to show the exiles that they were suffering the just consequences of their sins. It has been the traditional view of the Christian Church that the book of Ezekiel should be taken at its face value so that we regard the prophet as having done his preaching during the period 597 to 573 B.C. In the land of Babylonia. More recently there have been those who have sought to show that this prophet lived in Palestine for at least part of his ministry. Others have tried to show that the prophecy came from a date much later than the exile. In these discussions archaeology has done a good deal to support the traditional view (Thompson, 193-194)."

Archeological evidence helps to find the missing pieces of the puzzle in our historical and religious traditions. It is not the "smoking gun" that many religious leaders would like it to represent, but it does serve as a link between Christianity and science.